Piano Duet
by MsQuill101
Summary: Our favourite pianist meets someone unexpected - "Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same."  TsuchiuraXMori
1. Chapter 1: Ah, Pretty Girl!

Disclaimer: I own nothing at all! If I owned LCDO I would make like another four seasons to promote the appreciation of classical music and I'd pair Kaho up with Hihara 3~ Um, anyway, enjoy! Don't forget to read and review!

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"E-eto, it's really great that all of us can meet up like this, ne?"

"Indeed."

"Tch."

"Ahaha…" Hino let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh. Silence reigned supreme, save for the splashing of the other swimmers.

Tsukimori was freaking her out simply by staring blankly at her as though he expected her to say something, while Tsuchiura looked away uncomfortably. _Damn, Hino. You're so high-strung you're making me nervous too. _ Obviously she was thinking too hard about the confession she would no doubt make in the hotel room later when it would be just the two violinists.

What was he doing here anyway?

_Sigh_. It was Hino's fault he was here in the first place. When Tsukimori invited his "student", ahem, love interest to Paris while he was there for a performance, she had begged and begged him with those earnest golden eyes of hers to come along "for moral support". Apparently she wasn't prepared to face the ice cube all by herself. And being the ever-supportive best friend he was, Tsuchiura reluctantly left the comforts of university in Japan for France and the annoying company of the aforementioned ice cube.

So there he was, soaking in the huge, but extremely cold pool of the posh five-star hotel they were staying at (for some reason the heater wasn't working. So much for five-star). Under normal circumstances Tsuchiura would have left to enjoy the other luxuries that came with all five-star hotels, but unfortunately, (1) Hino made him promise not to leave the two of them alone, and (2) only Tsukimori could speak English fluently, which meant they had to stick to him.

Which left the frustrated soccer player as the third wheel where the violin lovers would clearly prefer some privacy.

Tsuchiura sighed and went under, blowing bubbles, trying to ignore the odd tension that came with volunteering to chaperon an awkward, love-starved couple. Suddenly, he caught sight of a pair of slim, white legs… doing the breaststroke halfway across the pool. What he could see was the V of the lower region of her dark blue swimsuit and her legs, delightfully exposing her crotch region every time she kicked out. He continued to watch, underwater, as she bent her legs, kicked, and brought them together again and again… until he forgot to breathe.

He burst out of the water, gasping. Tsukimori shot him a strange look, which he responded to with a glare of his own. His green eyebrows knitted together in a frown. _What the hell is wrong with me? Ugh... the hormones are finally catching up with me after all these years of decent behaviour... What if she's actually really old and ugly although she has nice legs? But she does have really nice legs… uh-oh, bad, bad…_

The now-red-faced man subconsciously glanced at the spot where the girl… woman, was. She wasn't there.

Frowning, the green-haired man scanned the pool. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement in the middle of the pool that quickly disappeared. He immediately plunged back into the water. Sure enough, her slender figure was struggling underwater, weakly kicking and trying to tread water. She was too far from either end of the pool and definitely too weak to make it. _By the time I alert the lifeguard, she might be dead._ Without a second thought, he knifed through the water in a fast, strong front crawl.

Within three strokes he had reached her. He dove deeper, then as he rose he carefully grabbed the floundering woman by the armpits and surfaced. A hand struck him in the neck and he went under again. _My life-saving course did __**not**__ prepare me to be attacked by the girl I'm supposed to be saving! _ Tsuchiura thought as he fought against the irrational panic engulfing his mind as water flooded his mouth. Struggling to hold on to her, he surfaced again, gasping for air. He pulled her above the water with him, kicking desperately.

This time, thankfully, she kept her hands away from his face. She clutched at his chest and shoulders, sputtering and coughing. They were close enough for him to support her weight, but far enough that their kicking legs didn't collide.

Although her long, brown hair completely obscured her face, Tsuchiura was fairly sure that she was, indeed, a girl, and not an old woman. In any case, he couldn't see her face properly, because to push the hair out of her face either one of them would have to let go of each other, which definitely meant sinking.

"_Merci_," She rasped, still coughing out water.

French? The only French words the piano player knew were performance directions for his pieces. Like, _cedez, douce, en dehors_. Those he knew.

"Um… Aru yuu OK?" he asked desperately, hoping his fairly high scores in English in school would get him through this. French people spoke English right?

"_Ah… Yes, I'm fine_," She mumbled, still not meeting his eyes. "_Thank you so much_."

Vaguely, he heard a voice call, _"Mary!"_

'Mary' heard it too, because she looked up, smiled, and said, "_Thank you!"_ again before letting go of him and swimming off. Through the matted brown hair and her goggles he caught a glimpse of blue eyes. He watched her swim off, then swam back to the violin couple.

"Tsuchiura-kun!"

"What?"

"You're really the white knight type eh?" Hino teased. He glared at her.

"She was drowning."

"Could it be that you did something inappropriate? You were touching her, were you not?"

Hino giggled loudly at Tsukimori's 'joke'. Tsuchiura groaned. He swam to the other end of the pool to escape them. When he swam back to their end, he didn't even stop and instead did an upside down turn and continued swimming.

But he was running out of breath, so this time he came up to take a breather. His eyes widened in shock as he burst out of the water. A pair of smooth, white, inner thighs met his eyes, splayed apart nicely. The same ones he had been staring at earlier, except without the few metres of water in between. These were inches from his face (okay fine, more than that but still…).

Red spreading across his tanned cheeks, he averted his eyes from the thighs, moving up to their owner's face. It was her. Long caramel hair, which he now realized was a lighter shade than he had thought, damp and delightfully mussed, framed her face which was still pale from swimming in the cold water. She was so pale he could see barely noticeable moles lightly dotting her face, lending some charm to her already pretty face. Her turquoise eyes were huge, open and sincere. She was wearing a fluffy pink robe tied loosely at the waist over a white spaghetti strap top and tight dark blue shorts. And she was squatting by the edge of the pool (therefore the robe had slid off, exposing her legs), peering down at him.

"_Hey. Are you swimming for much longer? Why don't you join me in the lounge later?"_

He gaped at her, tearing his goggles off and pushing his fringe out of his eyes.

"Mori-san?"

"Tsuchiura-kun!"

_to be continued..._

AN: Just to clarify, she grew her fringe long. At least in my story anyway. After all, people can't keep the same hairstyle forever...

R&R please! Thank you!


	2. Chapter 2: A Chance Meeting

**Recap**

**He gaped at her, tearing his goggles off and pushing his fringe out of his eyes.**

**"Mori-san?"**

**"Tsuchiura-kun!"**

Shock filled her face as his words registered in her mind. She quickly recovered and smiled warmly at him, seeming pleasantly surprised.

"What are you doing here? I can't believe I didn't recognize you!"

_Hino would kill me if she knew I'd been ogling her ex-accompanist._

"I'm here with Tsukimori and Hino. That's them over there," he replied his fellow pianist, struggling to get images of her thighs out of his head.

"Ah, sou ka!" Mori waved cheerfully at them before turning her attention back to him. "Want to join me in the lounge? They have the best hot chocolate there."

Tsuchiura raised his eyebrows. "Mori-san, you're shivering."

She made a face at him. "That's why I said, let's go to the lounge."

He laughed, good mood restored. Although it was still a bit of a shock that the girl was Mori Manami, an ex-Seiso student who had lent Kaho her skills as a piano accompanist during the concours. "Well… actually," he leaned in towards her, "I'm supposed to be chaperoning the lovebirds over there…" he gestured at the two violinists.

Mori looked a little disappointed, for some reason. He wondered why… surely she had been expecting her 'white knight' to be some handsome, mysterious foreigner, and not plain old Tsuchiura?

She stood up, and cupping her hands around her mouth, she called, "Hino-saaaaaan! Can I borrow Tsuchiura for a bit?"

"Haaaaiiii!" came the reply.

"See?" Mori smiled warmly at him. "Come on."

"Uh, you go ahead first and get warm. I'll be there soon," Tsuchiura replied, blushing for some reason. It wasn't until she left that he managed to pinpoint why. _Of all the embarrassing reasons…_ he shook his head as it came back to him.

_flashback_

_Tsuchiura, piano student at Seiso Music College, suddenly stopped in the middle of the corridor. _Sh*t! Where did that Piano Concerto in A minor go? Don't tell me I left it in class… on the day I'm supposed to be meeting Hino too…_ A quick check confirmed that he had, indeed, left the sheet music in class. _

_He ran his hand through his grass-green hair agitatedly and began jogging back to his classroom. Just as he reached, he heard girls' voices and paused with his hand on the door. Interrupting any giggly girls' conversation was never, ever a good idea._

_He recognized his classmates' voices – Sawamura Hana, Maki Sachiko, Ichisoku Yumi, Mori Manami. They were fairly sensible girls, so he considered entering-_

"_-there's only Tsuchiura, ne?"_

_What?_

"_Sou da yo ne, a lot of guys who like music are __**so**__ not sexy…" He heard sighs._

"_All the hot senpais and Tsukimori-san have left…"_

"_Luckily there's still Tsuchiura-san!" Giggles filled the air._

_And then an all-too-familiar voice sighed dreamily, "Tsuchiura-kun has a really nice body…"_

"_Ehh? Manami-chan, don't tell me you-?" the voices chorused._

"_Don't be silly! All the footballers are always going around shirtless, if you paid closer attention you would've noticed!" Her voice was flustered, embarrassed._

"_Ehh… so Manami-chan pays close attention to Tsuchiura-san?" another voice asked slyly._

"_Of course… you already knew that right? Since the concours…" her voice was now shy._

_WTH? I thought she didn't like me! Hino said during the second selection she said it's dangerous for music department piano students if a gen ed can play so well!_

_end flashback_

And that was how he found out Mori had a crush on him. Anyway, the point was… Tsuchiura was unfit. Fit by most people's standards, but the firm outline of his rippling muscles was gone. Since entering university, he'd barely had time to do sports while keeping up with the heavy workload. And for some reason, he didn't feel like getting out of the pool and disappointing Mori.

_What kind of stupid reason is that? She already felt me up just now when I was rescuing her…_ this train of thought only made him blush deeper. _Ugh_. He pushed these thoughts to the back of his head and hoisted himself out of the water, thinking of the warm heated lounge and hot chocolate.

….

Disclaimer: I disclaim.

I love this pairing, but I'm a pretty amateurish writer, so it's getting difficult to keep them in character. I hope you like it! Anyway, please review! ;D

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	3. Chapter 3: Souls That Click

**Recap: Tsuchiura saves a mysterious 'French' girl with sexy thighs, who turns out to be Mori Manami!**

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_**Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.**_

_**~ Emily Bronte**_

"Tsuchiura-kun!"

"Mori-san," he smiled as he lowered himself into the velvety plush armchair. Two steaming mugs of hot chocolate sat untouched on the glass coffee table that separated him and Mori.

He was glad he had taken up her offer – he was away from the cold and Tsukimori, and more comfortable than he had been since they arrived. Although he wasn't very close to Mori, her company beat the increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere of hanging around Hino and Tsukimori. Especially since he himself had once loved Hino – but that was in the past. He let it go over four years ago, and since then had played the role of supportive guy friend to perfection.

"So... 'Mary'?" he asked quizzically, raising one green eyebrow.

She laughed. "I like it – easy to say, easy to remember, and it does sound like Mori, doesn't it?"

"It does," he agreed, closing his eyes. "Are you studying here?"

"Why would I be staying at a five-star hotel if I were studying here?"

"Ah." _How embarrassing._

"I'm studying in London," she explained, amused. "I'm here with my friends from university. What about you, Tsuchiura-kun?"

"I'm studying music in Tokyo. Tsukimori's performing here, so Hino got me to come along…"

"Ah. So you're over her already?"

The eyebrow shot up again. "I got over her in high school," he replied curtly. Her eyes widened - his expression softened and he added casually, "Your hair's going into your hot chocolate."

"Oh! Sorry!"

"Don't apologize to me, it's your hair," he shook his head, ignoring the real meaning of her apology. He internally berated himself for overreacting – she had only been asking casually, not interrogating him.

She smiled apologetically at him. "So, are you planning to be a concert pianist? You certainly have the skills for it."

"How did you guess?" Again, she had caught him off guard. "Sometimes I perform at hotels and fancy restaurants, and honestly, I enjoy performing. What about you, Mori-san?"

"I want to compose," she smiled dreamily. "I love how the notes I write can just come alive… and take flight from the manuscript to produce something completely new and original, something that I created, something that's a part of myself. Ah! Gomen, I'm rambling, aren't I?" she asked sheepishly.

"No, it's interesting. What kind of music do you write?" In all his years of playing the piano, he'd never seriously tried to compose before, outside of theory exams, outside of chords and format and scoring marks. He'd never truly sat down and composed a song, his song.

"I'm trying to vary my compositions – of course, modern pop is the easiest, but it doesn't have as much character as music from the previous eras. Right now, I'm studying composing in university, so I'll see what I can do after that."

"Wow… that's great. Let me play some of your pieces," he grinned at her. The brunette was so animated, so… _cute_ when she talked about music. Her bright blue eyes came alive, and her pale cheeks flushed pink.

"Sure," she said jokingly. "One day when we're both famous we can duet on stage together. I'll play a white grand piano, and you can play a black one. Ne?"

"Sounds good," he smirked. "Try to compose really difficult pieces – I won't settle for anything less than a La Campanella."

"Oh? Is that a challenge?" Mori tried to glare, but ended up giggling. "You'd better practice hard Tsuchiura-kun… oh wait, are you giving up soccer?"

"Ma… it can't be helped," he sighed, shaking his head. "I'll still play, of course… but I don't think I can compete professionally."

"Aww, that's a pity," she smiled, eyes twinkling. "You were always so cool in school. Many of my friends idolized you."

"Ehh? Hontou?" he exclaimed, fighting to keep the blush down.

"They also found you quite intimidating, so they never dared to confess," she admitted, laughing at his indignant expression.

"Mori-san! Don't tease," he glared. "All the girls who ever confessed to me – not that there were many – usually ended up crying."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows were raised.

"I… ah, usually freak out after someone I barely know says stuff like, 'I've been watching you every day' or 'I've always wanted you to hold me in your arms', and… uh, you know," he confessed guiltily. He sank into the soft plush chair awkwardly and looked up – Mori was watching him speculatively.

"Why am I telling you this anyway?" he muttered, running a hand through his cropped green hair.

"I've never seen you like this before, Tsuchiura-kun," she said thoughtfully. "You were always cool and composed, sometimes really angry, but I've never seen you shy like this."

Cheeks reddening, Tsuchiura folded his arms, glaring at his mug of hot chocolate, and tried to regain his composure.

Silence reigned for at least a few minutes. He then made the mistake of looking up - his yellow eyes met the pianist's turquoise ones again, and somehow everything came tumbling out. It was so easy to talk, about his life, about hers, and everything in between. They talked, and talked, and talked, over hot chocolate and a shared slice of to-die-for chocolate cake (which Mori ate the most of despite complaining about the calories it involved, much to Tsuchiura's amusement). Tsuchiura couldn't help but wonder why they had never clicked in school before, because they sure were clicking now.

Unfortunately, a killjoy arrived in the form of a blue-haired ice cube violinist. Len tapped on his shoulder, his usual nasty frown on his face.

"Hino is looking for you. Are you done yet?"

Tsuchiura's expression soured even as Mori's brightened.

"Tsukimori-san! How are you doing? Why don't you join us for a bit? Oh, and ask Hino-san too!"

"I'm afraid not, Mori-san. Hurry up, Tsuchiura."

The green-haired man glared at Tsukimori. There was no escaping this – otherwise he would get a long, soppy lecture from Hino later. "Fine."

Turning back to the pink-robed pianist, he smiled warmly. "It was great talking to you, Mori-san. I hope I'll see you around."

"Likewise," she returned the smile, which somehow made Tsuchiura's head feel a bit lighter.

He left with Tsukimori, but even the ice cube's presence couldn't dampen his mood. Tsuchiura knew he would see Mori Manami again before he left. He had to, no matter what.

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I don't own anything!

I'm sorry it took me so long to update! Please, please tell me what you think... reviews make my day :D

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